Daughters of Durin
by Miluielwen
Summary: Not all wars are won on the battlefield - and the women of Durin's line will fight for as long as they live.
1. Prologue

**This is a rewrite of a story I started in the autumn of last year. Pairings and characters will be added as I go along, but expect to see almost all of your canon favourites as well as a few new additions.**

**As before, I couldn't have done this without the wonderful KivrinEngle - who I'm proud to call my friend as well as my beta and to whom this work is dedicated - or the equally lovely Madame Faust (over on AO3), whose works have been a never-ending source of delight and inspiration.**

**Thanks for reading!**

* * *

It was said, in the way such things often are, that the Blue Mountains still echoed with songs of the past. Though the Men living in their foothills were eager to dismiss these rumours as little more than dwarvish superstition, they were equally quick to close their businesses and bring home their children when the sea fog rolled in from the west. _Wights,_ they'd whisper, shooting suspicious looks at the mountains beyond and nodding sagely at their families while they boarded the windows against the wailing of the wind. _Wraiths and dwarrow-ghosts!_ _You'd best stay inside, dearies, least the gnomes snatch you up and drag you to their caverns._

It was a ridiculous notion, of course, as all old wives tales inevitably must be. In all the years she had spent amongst the ranges and rocks, Aesa Adíslasdaughter had never seen a ghost or anything remotely resembling one-not in the way the Men described them, at least. The mountains might be alive, aye, alive and more ancient than most Men could understand, but they housed no specters or spirits. They certainly weren't the scene of kidnappings or theft or whatever it was the old woman by the riverbed was saying these days.

Scorched and craggy as the peaks were, their only offense - if it could be called as such - was to appear somewhat ominous to foreign eyes. Their ridges were blackened with the scars of old dragon fire, a constant reminder of the evil that yet roamed the world and the bloodshed that had come before it; really it was little wonder the Men feared the mountains. Their claims were absurd, perhaps, but they were far from unfounded.

Yet if Aesa were to speak of the things that haunted her home, she wouldn't point up at the summits themselves; she would much sooner mention the manner in which their inhabitants averted their eyes and whispered a prayer whenever they passed the worst of the singeing. Instead of spinning tales of what might lurk in the shadows, she'd recite one of the many songs she'd been taught as a child - filled with sorrow and longing for a faraway place - or note the shortness of her king's beard and the lack of fine jewels on his kinsfolk. There mightn't be wights in Thorin's Halls, but that hardly meant they weren't haunted.

Theirs were ghosts of a different kind: the ones found in poems and prayers, in the empty spaces during Durin's Day and the burden of knowing one looked like this-or-that uncle or resembled so-and-so's sister. The memories of the lost walked amongst them as surely as he living did. She'd been raised with them, readied for what lay ahead by their example, and now - it seemed - she would be wed alongside their very images.

For all that she was a Durin, she'd never expected to find herself in such a position.

Little fish swam down her spine and made her shiver. The solemn figures of the burned dwarves of Azanulbizar gazed down at her from the walls of the sanctum, their faces severe and unsmiling. _Thror; Fundin; Frerin. _She repeated their names like a mantra and could near swear she heard them whisper back to her. _Seven stars and seven heirs and one lost realm, _they seemed to say, _whither go now Durin's folk, of shining axe and sturdy helm?_

The words were as familiar to her as they were to any Longbeard. She might not have known her Cousin Eílif, who had died long before she'd ever been born, but the old queen's prophecy was the first verse her family learned and the last many remembered once dotage had muddled their memory. As the story went, Thráin's embittered wife had smiled as she'd said the words and passed into a swoon not long after; it had been a matter of days before they'd been taken as a portent and they'd spread rapidly ever since. _The bells shall ring in gladness at the Mountain King's return, but all shall fail in sadness and the lake shall shine-_

Aesa inhaled sharply, forcing herself to focus on the steady drone of the _juzrâl_'s blessing and instinctively reaching for the prayer beads in the folds of her sleeve. Her fingers slid past the edge of lace that had been sewn into the lining - too little of it to have trimmed her wrist, but enough to serve its purpose - before finding the smooth edge of one of the pearls. _Something old, something new. _The body beside her own shifted at her unrest. There was a familiar warmth in the gesture, an unspoken sense of concern that made her smile to notice it. She wasn't the least bit surprised to find her husband looking back at her when she glimpsed out from behind the embroidered edge of her veil.

_Fíli,_ her heart sang as she took in the familiar features, _Fíli, my own beloved, my darling prince. _He did look every inch the royal heir now, dressed to the nines in the colours of their house and that of his father. Truthfully, it was a little unsettling to see him like this. She'd known him for as long as she could remember and had loved him for almost as long, but he'd only ever been Fíli to her-just as she'd only ever been Aesa, daughter of a Firebeard smith and his playmate since birth. They'd always known they were of Durin's line, too - how could they not, when Thorin and the others had emphasised it at every turn - though their birthright had seemed a rather distant thing until then, the stuff of history books and the overwhelming sadness in their elders's eyes. It had never felt real before.

But today-today it did. She'd expected to marry as the other youngsters of their colony would, in her best gown with only the nearest of her kin for witnesses some deserving but minor noble for her groom. The actual occasion couldn't be further from what she'd imagined and, while sublimely overwhelming, she couldn't believe their luck in having Thorin agree to the match. He was hard-pressed to deny his nephews anything - Kíli especially, being the spitting image of his late uncle - but Fíli was his successor, the heir on whom everyone's hopes were firmly pinned. Surely there had to be better options available to them; wealthy dwarrowdams from the Iron Hills, buxom beauties from the Blue Mountains, Maker, even a political alliance with the Orocarni might have been preferable to her limited skills and lesser treasure. She couldn't quite understand why she'd been chosen, nor likely ever would, yet here she was-surrounded by wedding guests she barely knew and her cheeks aglow with the pleasure of taking Fíli's hand in front of them.

For once, she didn't care what others might think.

Not that she wasn't keenly aware of the sheer amount of dwarves gathered in the holy room. The dead weren't the only ones watching her; it felt as though every cousin and kinsman - royal or otherwise - had turned out to see her married and crammed themselves into the alcove that formed the inner sanctum. She wondered, somewhat idly, whether this was to be their life now-if their every action would be watched and choice of words picked apart. She'd never envied Thorin his position, limited though his powers were out here in the west, and the prospect of finding herself in a similar position daunted her more than she'd like to admit.

Her fingers tightened around Fíli's. No turning back now; the final prayers were already being said, the crowd murmuring along dutifully even as the _juzrâl_ raised the couple to their feet and turned them toward their witnesses. Aesa was unable to see much further than the second row of dwarves but she could make out Bofur towards the back, hat in hands and grinning broadly. The rest of their Broadbeam kin could only be close. Thorin was standing with his sister, both of them beaming (beaming! who'd have thought) in approval, while Balin and Dwalin took their places beside them. Their smiles were a welcome sight next to the marked indifference of some of the Iron Hills party.

The front row, meanwhile, was almost entirely taken by the younger generation. She studied their faces fondly. Kíli - darling Kíli, who'd been a sibling to her long before she married his brother - and Thorin Stonehelm, her now-uncle's namesake from the east; Gimli, the fierce little cousin who could match any dwarf twice his age; Dagmaer, Dáin's young daughter who had inherited all of her mother's Longbeard looks but none of her dour temperament; and finally Gyda, Aesa's own sister who'd been away for so long she felt she barely knew her. For a long moment she couldn't bring herself to look away from the elaborate red hair, the sly green eyes, the barest quirk of the lips. This wasn't the girl she remembered, though Gyda had been enough trouble even as a child, and Aesa wasn't sure what to make of the woman who stood in her place. Why hadn't she come home until now? Why couldn't she have written more, or made some effort to be grateful to the people who had raised them?

She didn't know-but then, she supposed, she didn't yet recognise the raven-haired princess who stood in her own place either, the girl who wore a gown shot through with silver and more jewels than she'd ever thought to own. In a strange way it felt like they were dressing up, pretending to be someone else like they'd used to when they were but wee bairns. She might know a bit more about the world now, but she still couldn't tell what the future would hold-none of them could. _Seven stairs and seven heirs and one lost realm, _she mused, dragging her eyes back along the line of her family. _Mahal help us, we aren't ready._

A cheer went up from the gathered crowd and snapped her back to the present. Fíli's grasp was tender as he pulled her towards him and kissed her, smiling with such devotion she felt her chest might burst at the sight of it. Someone - Bofur, most likely - whistled from across the room and half the crowd howling with laughter. Aesa chuckled against Fíli's mouth and wound a hand into the braids at his shoulder. Let them laugh; let them look. She might blush under their scrutiny, but she couldn't deny her own happiness.

In the split second they broke apart, Fíli rested his forehead against hers with the softest whisper of her name - her true name, the one she had given him when they had become betrothed - and she knew, in her heart, that she would stay with him until the day they died. There was a comfort in the steadiness of his love and the loyalty he'd always shown-a comfort, she suspected, she would come to rely on in the years ahead. They mightn't know what lay ahead, but prophecies be hanged and to Mordor with the burden of their heritage; they would face it together, as they were surely meant to do.

She was Aesa, daughter of Adíslas of the line of Durin and wife to Fíli, nephew and heir to Thorin Oakenshield-and for the first time in her life, she was unafraid.

_And do not cut your beards, now, nor your garments rend; for when the birds of yore return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end._

* * *

Far away to the east a monster stirred beneath a single, solitary peak. It shifted, sending gold and gems scattering as it did, the thrum of its breath trailing with whisps of smoke that drifted towards the high, vaulted ceilings of its domain. A shimmering white gem slipped from beneath a monstrous claw and for a moment the beast seemed to wake, but then the tip of its wing found the treasure, and it turned on its side and slumbered again.

But Smaug the Terrible, the Old Worm, Chiefest and Greatest Calamity of His Age, would not sleep forever-nor indeed for very long.


	2. A Wedding To Remember

There were times when Gyda, daughter of Adíslas, really hated being right.

She'd hated it when her father hadn't come home one day and, somehow, she'd known he never would again. She'd hated it even more when the traders's children had chased her all the way to the Eastern Gates, mocking and making fun of her for something she knew to be true (_look at Lady La-dee-da here - thinks she's a right princess_!). She hated it now, watching her sister smile at her new husband while half the mine fell at their feet in adoration.

She'd warned Dáin this would happen.

What more could Thorin want for his heir than a sweet little wife with a dowry to match, after all? Aesa might be more amber than emerald in her own sister's eyes, pliable and utterly ordinary, but there was no denying she made a fine bride for Fíli. Amenable, well-liked and ever so dutiful, she'd yet to put a foot out of place in all of her life. Gyda doubted she was even capable of it. She was lucky, too: while they both stood to inherit from their family's fortune it was Aesa who'd inherited their dark Durin looks to match, who'd been blessed with all of their bearing and none of their obstinacy. She'd make a bonny princess while their exile lasted and, in time, would no doubt prove a fertile queen as well.

Why, Dáin himself couldn't have come up with a better pairing. He certainly ought to have expected such a thing to happen, though to Gyda's indignation he'd dismissed the notion the moment she'd suggested it. His one mistake had been to remember Aesa as she had been before: a meek, spindly lass whose too-long limbs were forever getting underfoot and who Dís had been forced to defend whenever Gyda'd gotten too fiery. It hadn't occurred to him that the dwarfling he'd known would've changed, matured, perhaps even been groomed for precisely such a purpose; he'd not spared her a second thought until the news of her betrothal had reached the Iron Court. By then it had been far too late to do anything but accept the invitation and prepare for the journey west, and so here they were, enjoying Thorin's best mead and marveling at the girl he'd picked for his successor. It was all damnably predictable.

They might not have seen each other in decades, but Gyda knew her sister - knew what she might have grown into - and, unlike Aesa, had long since learned to play at politics. Even from miles away the match had seemed obvious to her. In spite of what the singers might say it was too convenient and well-timed to be anything like coincidence, let alone fate (as some of the more soppy amongst them might put it). The family were sure to dispute such a thing if it were brought up - Kíli might go so far as to fight her over it, she thought with a half-hearted huff of laughter; while some things might change over time, others never would - but it was hard not to notice the rumours of ravens returning to the Mountain or the set of Queen Hjördís's sapphires adorning Aesa's fine garb. Like a carefully laid puzzle, it had all come together quite perfectly - and yet, until that evening, Gyda appeared to have been the only one to have seen the bigger picture.

The machinations she saw behind her marriage notwithstanding, there was something about Aesa Gyda hadn't thought to find. She still blushed and ducked her head at every turn, still clutched at her beloved prayer beads when she thought no one was looking, but there was a quiet contentment in the way she carried herself and a fearlessness in the way she behaved around Fíli that were as new as they were unforeseen. She'd grown into herself at last, it seemed; there'd been more than a few comments on how like their mother she looked, and had Gyda been any more sentimentally inclined she might have added that being in love suited her sister. There was no question about that at least: if anything, the two of them were obviously, utterly, unbearably besotted.

Gyda winced and downed her wine in one. There were times when she hated being right - but she hated being jealous most of all.

Beside her, Dagmaer balanced her pretty head on her hand and sighed wistfully. The drink was stronger than any she'd had at home, yet her starry-eyedness that evening stemmed from far more than simple intoxication. There was an innocence to her young cousin which, while usually endearing, did make her maddeningly naive at times too. She'd fallen hook, line and sinker for the fairytale that was her cousins's wedding and remained ignorant of its larger implications. Gyda was glad of it, for her part, even if Dag hadn't been able to stop nattering about it since they'd woken up that morning.

Thorin the Younger - or Helm, as he was known, on the cusp of his majority but still a long way from being grown - hadn't Gyda's patience, however, and had no qualms about telling his sister to stop staring. "Maker's sake, Dag, give over," he grumbled from across the table, "you'd think you're sweet on the both of them."

"Like you are on Lord Vît's daughter?" Dagmaer said slyly, grinning when Helm's eyes went wide with shock. "You see, brother, I'm learning." He was halfway to making a less-than-lordly gesture in return when an arched eyebrow from Gyda stifled it, though she could do little to prevent Dagmaer from sticking out her tongue seconds after.

"Behave, you two."

Helm rolled his eyes. "They've known each other since before we were born," he said, snatching another roll from a nearby serving platter, "it'd be like marrying Kjárr or Signy."

"Ach, what's wrong with either of those fine young dwarves?" Gyda parried, fighting a smile. "'Sides Signy's lack of talent and Kjárr's mousy beard, that is."

"Says the copperhead!" Helm teased, and though Gyda was tempted to stick her tongue out as well she knew better than to let him elicit the reaction he was hoping for.

"I'll have you know it's exotic," she said archly, "and that some of our great beauties are red as a flame. Just you look at Gudrûn over there."

"But she's Cousin Gimli's mam."

"So?"

"Well I think it's romantic," Dagmaer cut in, bringing them back to their original topic of conversation. She fidgeted with the crystals that had been woven into her whiskers in the manner only the mildly drunk could; Gyda barely kept herself from prying her hands away with a patronising pat on the head.

"Don't you?"

"Terribly," Gyda drawled, poking the younger girl in the ribs until she giggled instead. Helm, seemingly oblivious to her insincerity, narrowed his eyes at her.

"You're not thinking 'bout your own wedding, are ye?"

"I promise you I'm not," Gyda laughed, only a little startled at the suggestion, and tossed a chunk of meat at Helm's scrunched up, disapproving face. He was still at that stage where the notion of a romantic relationship seemed alien and inexplicable to him, the sort of thing you acknowledged might be in your future but never gave any serious thought. He'd grow out of it eventually, Gyda expected, but for now his bewilderment was mostly just amusing.

"Well of course y'are! Your sister's married now, after all," Dagmaer protested, looking as appalled as her brother had even as she turned to face him, "and just because you've the appeal of an elf doesn't mean she does."

Smile fading a little, Gyda looked down at the old ring that had been her mother's and now sat on her own finger. She wanted to get married; aye, of course she did. She wanted what her parents had had, the sort of love that still made their friends's eyes gloss over with the memory of it even years after they'd both passed. She just... she didn't want it to happen _soon_. Marriage meant unquestioning devotion and selflessness, a duty and responsibility to more than just herself; all the things her sister so excelled at but she simply didn't feel ready for. She wanted freedom; she wanted the world. Being who she was meant there'd always been an unspoken expectation that she would one day wed and help secure the future of her house, and in years to come she probably would - but not now, nor anytime soon. Not yet.

In any case she didn't want to have to worry about bairns before she was good and ready to; not while she had her two bampot cousins to concern herself with, anyway.

"I'm sure it'll be many a year 'afore I do," she shrugged, half-aware of the shift in the room and the fact that things were being moved aside to make space for dancing. The downside of smaller halls, she thought distractedly; Dáin's had never required any such measures, grand as they were.

Dagmaer nudged her shoulder with a grin. "Maybe not that many," she said, nodding her head towards the dwarves that sat further down their table. "Now that you're back in the Blue Mountains you'll have scores of suitors."

"Don't be daft, Dag," Helm chided with a snort of laughter, "who's there to marry for her here but a scraggy bunch of miners and petty tinkerers?"

"But her Da was-" Dagmaer said, breaking off mid-sentence when she felt Gyda stiffen. Her eyes grew eyes almost comically confused while they darted between her two kinfolk; she might be learning, but she had a long way to go yet and was still prone to putting her foot in her mouth every once in a while. Gyda fought the urge to sigh. If she'd had a coin for every time someone had brought up that inescapable wee nugget of information she'd be a wealthy dwarrowdam indeed. Her experience in dealing with such occasions stretched back to well before she'd met her Iron cousins.

"_Close to your craft means close to the Maker,_ little lord," she told Helm pointedly, satisfied to see him blush a bright red beneath his dark beard, "don't you forget that." Dagmaer, meanwhile, seemed more genuinely dismayed than merely embarrassed. She didn't like upsetting anyone, let alone Gyda, and she hadn't wanted her cousin to move away in the slightest - almost as much as Gyda herself hadn't wanted to return west, in fact.

Noticing the lass's distress, Gyda wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "It's all right, Dag," she said, keeping her voice light, "it won't be so bad." She floundered to find some tidbit of positivity, something she could use to convince Dagmaer that being forced to return to a place she thought she'd left behind wasn't every inch as awful as it felt. There - the salted cod, a rarity out east but altogether more common this close to the Lune.

"I've quite missed the taste of fish, y'know."

Dagmaer smiled a little. "You'll come visit us though, won't you?" she said, catching her lower lip between her teeth and snuggling into Gyda's side, "Adad can't mean to keep you here forever."

"We'll see, dear heart," Gyda murmured, pressing a kiss into her cousin's unruly curls. Her gaze drifted past Fíli as he led her sister to the dance floor and back to the high table, where the elder Thorin had now taken a seat next to Dáin and seemed to be in the midst of an animated discussion with him. _When the birds of yore return to Erebor_, a distant voice reminded her, setting her hair on edge and making her feel as though the future were already closing in on them. Things were changing, she could tell, their fortunes rising and falling as surely as the seasons did; perhaps her stay in the Ered Luin wouldn't be as long as she'd feared it might. Her eyes met Dáin's as he glanced up to look around the hall, an unspoken understanding passing between them.

"We'll see."

* * *

She knew something was off when he looked away from her.

He'd kept his eyes on her face until then, steady and studying, but several turns into the dance they'd suddenly wandered elsewhere. "Fíli?" she said as she stepped in towards him, gently squeezing his hand where it was intertwined with her own. She used the next step back to follow his gaze when he didn't answer; it came as no surprise to find he'd been looking at Thorin and Dáin where they sat at the high table, now newly joined by Mr Balin.

"Ah," she breathed, unease settling in her stomach like a physical weight. There was only one thing that might be important enough to miss the newlywed's dance for - and, tonight of all nights, it was not something she wanted to consider.

"He's got that look again," Fíli said softly, finally turning back to her. He was frowning, a first that day; he might be physically facing her again, but she could feel him slipping from her all the same. "You know the one." He hesitated, a faint hint of excitement creeping into his eyes. "D'you think-"

"Cousin Dáin's not been to visit in decades," Aesa tried to reason, doing her best to sound convincing though she hardly did even to her own ears, "it's bound to be naught but trade and treaties they're talking about."

"Maybe," he said, though to her relief he smiled not long after. "Tell you the truth, I don't know whether that'd be better or worse."

_Better_, she wanted to say; _better, if it means we can have a few more years of peace and I won't have to send you off to war so soon after our wedding_. It was selfish of her to even think it, she knew, and part of her bristled to do so, yet she couldn't help it any less than she could stop the conversation from taking place. Perhaps she ought to have expected that at least part of the day would be spent discussing the future - a future which would inevitably include an attempt to claim back the home she'd never so much as seen.

She felt hopelessly small in the face of it, a silly little girl cowering in the shadow of a far-off Mountain with no idea how to go about confronting it. It wasn't a sensation she much liked. She was a dwarf of Erebor, a daughter of Durin's line; shouldn't the thought of retaking it excite her?

"Gyda seems well," Fíli remarked, glancing somewhere just over her shoulder - at her sister, presumably, who'd been seated with Dáin's brood when she'd last seen her - before focusing on her once more.

"She does," Aesa agreed evasively, catching her breath a bit when the steps brought them in close enough to kiss. She tore her eyes from his lips, forcing herself not to give into the temptation, but to her horror he'd noticed the move and was smiling down at her in amusement.

Chuckling low in his throat, he placed a hand on the small of her back (which didn't help in the slightest) and guided her through the next part of the dance. "Have you seen her at all since she arrived?" he asked, raising his eyebrows when telling silence was all he received in response.

"I know, I know," Aesa groaned, smiling in spite of herself. It was true she'd more or less avoided her sister since the party from the Iron Hills had made it to their doorstep, and even then she'd been awkward and unsure of how to approach the people who were meant to be her closest kin. Fíli had had no such issue, sweeping Gyda into a good-natured hug with an exclamation of _Mahal, Gyd, how long has it been_ (twenty-nine years and just over a month, to be precise), but there'd been a lingering sense of old hurt - of betrayal - between them that Aesa hadn't been able to put aside yet. Seeing Gyda again had raked over embers she'd thought to have doused ages ago, but it seemed there was some heat in them still.

"Folk say she's charming and clever," Fíli mused, "a real credit to your mother, for all that she looks like your da. Why don't you try to talk to her?"

Aesa winced. "I wouldn't know where to start."

"'Hello' seems as good a place as any," Fíli quipped, laughing when she spun back into him with rather more force than was strictly necessary. If she caught him on the shoulder in the process, well, such a thing were surely incidental and served him right entirely.

"Oi!" he said, pretending to be outraged, "you know you're not meant to hit your prince."

"Aye, but I reckon I can hit my husband right enough," she smiled, ducking underneath his arm just in time to see his face soften and smile widen.

"Husband," he said, as though he were trying to see how it sounded; the awe in his voice was enough to make her stomach flutter and forget about about the business with the dragon for a while. "I like that."

"As do I," she said as she slipped past and circled him. She took the opportunity to look at the guests while she did, taking in faces both familiar and strange, seeing smiles on them most everywhere she went. "We've done well, haven't we?" she asked softly, tilting her head toward him. "We've made people happy."

"Happy enough," he said ruefully, eyes flicking over to where Dáin's wife stood; Aesa barely kept herself from laughing as she noticed Áslaug's sour expression, an all too common sight from what she understood, and focused instead on the final, intricate steps of the dance.

"But what about you, sweeting?" Fíli said when she spun towards him one last time, catching her easily against his chest, "are you happy?"

It look her less than a moment to make up her mind. "The very happiest," she whispered, because fleeting as the feeling might turn out to be she genuinely was. Fíli tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers lingering tenderly against her cheek; the gesture was so intimate she quite forgot about the applauding crowd and didn't so much as try to stop herself from kissing him.

But before they knew it, a solid weight had collided with theirs and a set of arms was being flung around them. Aesa didn't even need to open her eyes to recognise who it was. "Ow, Kíli!" she complained, burrowing herself further into Fíli's hold in an attempt to get away from him.

"Get off, you git," Fíli said, though the look he shot Aesa was more fondly exasperated than truly angry - and Kíli knew it.

"How about we find you a room instead, hey?" he laughed, stepping back only slightly, "might be more pleasing for all parties involved."

"Would that I could," Fíli muttered, only succeeding in making Kíli laugh all the harder and Aesa blush even more. Another voice spoke up from a little ways away.

"Seems you've already shocked your new wife, cousin," Gyda said, joining their group with a pleasant smile and a nod of her pretty head. "Here now - the four of us together again. Who'd have thought."

"Aye, who indeed," Kíli said, a touch tersely. His dislike of Gyda, much like Aesa's wariness, went back decades - they'd never seen eye to eye and likely never would. Silence stretched between them for an agonising beat before the music started up again. It was a lively jig this time, one that had half the hall up on their feet in instant; Kíli was quick to seize his chance when he saw it.

"Let me steal you for a dance, sister dear," he said to Aesa, resting a hand on her shoulder even as he winked at Fíli, "before my brute of a brother changes his mind and keeps you to himself." He barely ducked the smack Fíli aimed at his head, grinning impishly but waiting patiently as Aesa kissed Fíli's cheek and extracted herself from his embrace. Once she had he linked her arm with his and guided her off, the two dark heads soon disappearing into the mass of revellers.

Fíli shook his own and turned to Gyda. "What d'you reckon, then," he said, holding out his arm to her, "shall we each have a sibling to dance with?"

Something flitted across Gyda's face - something calculating and strangely detached - but then she smiled and it was gone as soon as it had appeared. "I don't see why not," she said, wrapping her small hand around Fíli's elbow, "lead the way."

And so they danced, the eldest of Durin's young heirs, spinning on the edge of a new era the end of which they could not yet see. From the sidelines their elders watched and planned and wondered: were they right to ask this of them, or would the years bring only sorrow to these summer's children?

Seven years and seven winters would pass before they'd find out - but when they did, it would be as swift and as harsh as a fierce winter storm.

* * *

Thank you for reading - reviews very much appreciated!


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